Читать книгу Chips And Splinters - Edward S Sorenson - Страница 6

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Phineas Jones was a native of Wattle Gully, an obscure little place that isn't marked on any map excepting always the mud maps that Phineas draws on the road with a stick when directing some unfortunate wanderer to the awful place. He was a timber getter, having commenced in that pioneering work as soon as he was able to ride after bullocks and act as offsider at pinches for his father, and was educated between whiles at the little slab school in Wattleville. His father was the only one in a community of 29 who subscribed to current literature. He took the "Government Gazette" and "Hansard," and as he read them aloud to the family in the big fireplace at night, especially the political speeches, which he punctuated with long discourses of his own, the budding genius beside him, which was Phineas, got not only an early grip of the world's doings, but, following the bent of the oldest inhabitant, which was his father, shaped his interests into a decided political channel. Thus he talked politics in his boyhood in the timber-getters' camp; he talked politics to himself as he plodded along beside his bullocks with the whip on his shoulder; and he dreamed politics at night, when he was mostly member for the district, driving around and handing out bridges and culverts to Wattle Gully and neighboring deputationists.

He was so politically obsessed that he named all his team after leading members of Parliament; the near-side bullocks were the Government and the offsiders the Opposition. Apposition. When there was a change in the House he changed the sides of his team, and consequently had trouble with it for a week or two after. The new Premier and the new Ministers took a lot of breaking in to office. When he had a good side, including several bearing the names of members whose politics pleased him, his fondest hope was to see those members returned at every election.

Sometimes he took a dislike to a politician because a bullock bearing his name was intractable or a loafer, or perhaps the animal would be named after a member of Parliament who had incurred his displeasure. In either case the unfortunate brute would get more than his share of the whip and abuse, and the driver would see him poleaxed before ever he would get a vote from him again. When the member he represented was defeated, the driver would wave his hat joyfully and cry: "Hooray you've got kicked out, you waster—now you can go to the beef cask." And ten to one the ex-M.P. would be fattened up and killed.

As he grew older Phineas was listened to with more respect, and came to be regarded as an authority on Parliamentary matters. Nothing pleased him better than to meet one who could argue with him. Then he expressed his views at great length, dilating in particular on local requirements and timber-getters' grievances, the disgraceful condition of the roads of Wattle Gully, and the scandalous neglect of the district generally. In this way he acquired a masterful oratory—that is, for Wattle Gully—and when someone suggested that he should put up for Parliament the idea took root in his mind and stayed there. He was convinced that he was the man to save the country. He went about more, even to towns and hamlets 20 miles away; he attended all meetings and social functions in the neighborhood, and hurled long speeches at the gatherings on the least provocation.

These were not impromptu speeches, though they were supposed to be. Phineas carefully wrote them out while lying in his tent at night by the light of a malodorous slush-lamp; and he practised them when nobody was about. Joe Anderson had seen him coming along the timber track one day, with the whip in one hand and his hat in the other, orating loudly to the surrounding bush. He recognised at once that this sort of thing would get him talked about as a lunatic, so he contented himself with a short address at his camp at night-time. He stood on a stump and talked to the trees, now with hands under his coat-tails (or where they should be), now leaning impressively forward and tapping a finger on his palm, and again throwing his hand out towards the audience that wasn't there. Occasionally he would wheel round sharply and answer an imaginary interjector in his best sarcastic manner, and he would put in the hand-claps and hear-hears of his admirers, who were absent, and wind up by moving a vote of confidence in himself, which he would carry unanimously.

A genius like Phineas Jones wasn't to be buried in the bush of Wattle Gully for ever. He prospered with his timber-carrying; he bought a town house, married the charming daughter of poor-but-honest parents, and became a respectable and God-fearing citizen of Wattleville. Then he shoved and bored his way into everything that had honorable intentions. There couldn't be a dogfight without Phineas being among those present. He harangued at street corners; he was Prime Minister in the debating club, and the leading light of the progress association. He was so many things and in so many places that he scarcely had time to drive bullocks those days. In fact, bullock-driving was getting beneath him, though he never let that be suspected even when, later, he hired men to do it for him. He blossomed into an auctioneer and timber-buyer, by which time he was indeed a busy man of importance, and so well known thait there was no reason why the idea that had been planted in his head in the bogs of Wattle Gully should not blossom also.

Soon it was known that he was a candidate for the constituency of Wattleville. Phineas made it known far and wide by shoals of handbills and placards, backed by a stentorian voice trained in the lordly profession of ox-conductor and seller of old furniture. Old mates and co-workers read on the trees by the roadside: "Vote for Phineas Jones. The Working Man's Friend. The Timber-getters' Hope. The Man Who Understands Your Work and Wants." He talked to them with the enthusiasm of a great local patriot whose interests were wrapped up in Wattle Gully and its people. He promised them roads, bridges, culverts, schools and Government billets. Above all, he was a man who would always remember old mates, who would never turn his back on the laborer no matter how high he might climb himself. He had been a working man all his life, and was still in heart one of themselves, and would ever be. In short, he was a modest, honest democrat, who was never going to change, and who regarded the capitalist as the scourge of the country.

He talked like that at his timber-camp meetings, but the timber-getters noticed that he wore a different coat when he was among the squattocracy. They observed that he had social ambitions; already he considered himself a superior person among the rugged knights of the long-handled whip. When Joe Anderson met him in town Phineas didn't know him. Joe was a good-natured, simple soul, but utterly impossible in select circles. On the same occasion Phineas, magnificently important in a nail-can hat and clawhammer coat, passed his father in the street without seeing him; but then he was walking between the visiting magistrate and the new postmaster, and the old man was rough-shod in blue dungarees and a slouch hat, and was wearing a leather belt with a huge plebeian pouch on it. It would have been embarrassing to have had to admit the relationship to his gentleman friends.

These little peculiarities got Phineas talked about in a fashion that was decidedly unparliamentary. The timber warriors regarded him as a renegade, and for awhile openly resented his unbrotherly airs. Then all at once they came round to him again, and flattered him with positive assurances of success at the ballot. He had their support to a man. Phineas, confident in himself, prepared to leave Wattleville immedately after the election. He sold out his interests and possessions to Brown, a shrewd business rival and subsequently discovered that Brown had cornered the timber trade as well. But it didn't matter to him now; his sphere was politics; and he spent all his time and much hard cash in the campaign.

On election day there was a great rally of timber-getters in Wattleville. They rallied round Jones; they shepherded him and toasted him until he subsided limply on to a couch in his committee-room. That was late in the afternoon. About 10 p.m. they pulled him together, and spruced him up a bit. Then his excited eyes lit on the figures that had been posted up in the room:

PHINEAS JONES 1202 DANIEL MURPHY 17

Phineas at once ordered free drinks to be served out at the pub, after which he was escorted to a commanding balcony to deliver his thanksgiving speech.

His appearance was greeted with wild cheers. Urged by grinning associates, he commenced to beef out the speech he had prepared for the occasion. At first dead silence fell on the crowd. The hero of the day was warming up before they got the hang of the situation. Then the spontaneous hilarity of the audience shook the roof, at which Phineas halted with a stupefied look. He made another start, and was greeted with catcalls. He couldn't understand it. They had all voted for him, and now they guyed him. It was too much for his muddled brain, and presently he gulped down an overdose of whisky and collapsed.

When he woke in the morning his wife's eyes reproached him from the bedside. She threw a damp copy of the local paper at him, and walked out with an air of mingled humiliation and scorn. In perplexity he opened the sheet. For a moment he ceased to breathe, and his eyes bulged as he read:

DANIEL MURPHY 1225 PHINEAS JONES 17

He was still staring at it in a cold tremor when the old man slouched in.

"Why, bless me soul, boy," he said, "I was 'bout the only one who voted for yer!"

"The paper's got the figures reversed!" gasped Phineas. "It's me that's elected."

"Elected be d——d! You're the biggest fool on Wattle Gully," said his father, with feeling. "Th' bullock-camp's YOUR Parliament."

The shock made the deluded candidate ill for a week. When he crept forth at last he found everybody provokingly mirthful. He had three fights within an hour, and wound up by getting run in for riotous behavior. That finished him in Wattleville. He stole away one night, and when last heard of he was trekking north with a string of bullocks, and spitting anathemas at the worst member in the team, the name of which was Dan'l Murphy.